This invention relates generally to dental products and particularly to a disposable tooth cleaning and polishing product usable after eating and at any convenient time or location during the day for removing film and food deposits and oral cavity juices from the teeth to help reduce plaque build-up and to freshen the user's breath.
Many products such as tooth brushes and pressurized pulsating water devices are available and well-known for cleaning the teeth at specific times of the day in the privacy of one's own home. However, because plaque, food particles and oral acids and the like build up on teeth continuously during the day, and particularly after meals, many individuals more conscientious about maintaining good dental hygiene, prefer to engage in some form of teeth cleaning periodically during the day in conditions and circumstances which do not lend themselves conveniently to more private and personal forms of dental hygiene.
Several well-known techniques for attempting to affect dental hygiene during the day are known to applicant. One obvious method is simply the chewing of variously commercially available types of gum, some sugared, and some artifically sweetened, to reduce detrimental effects upon cavity formation and general oral hygiene. Another well-known form of mouth freshing resides in simply rinsing the mouth with a commercially available mouthwash, some flavored, some including medicinal and antibacterial components.
Another invention known to applicant is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,421,911 to Cohen which discloses a tooth cleaning device having an elongated handle which is interengageable into a cylindrically shaped tooth cleaning roll which comprises an elongated strip of two-part material having cotton as a base or carrier inherently attached to a layer of thin facing of non-absorbent cotton. The roll, when used for cleaning teeth, is impregnated with a dentifrice into the cotton layer. Another prior art invention known to applicant is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,154 to White which discloses a dental product in the form of a chewable plastic embodied in strip or foam capsule or cloth which is intended to be partially masticated and then vigorously rubbed against the tooth surfaces to effect cleaning.
The present invention discloses a much simpler and less expensive to manufacture invention for effecting convenient and unobtrusive cleaning of the teeth surfaces at virtually any period during the day, even at a restaurant table after enjoying a meal. Additional uses of the present invention are for cleaning the teeth of patients after oral surgery and for use by attendants of geriatric patients who can no longer clean their own teeth. As provided by the present invention, the user may simply, by holding one of the various forms of the invention, vigorously rub each of the tooth surfaces with the appropriate surface thereagainst until virtually all of the tooth surface residue has been rubbed free and collected on the surface of the invention. Thereafter, disposal is effected in a manner similar to disposing of a small piece of paper. By the various embodiments, the user may be provided with a broad range of choice in the structure which he prefers to utilize, whether it be by simple releasable adhesion means to his fingertip or alternately held thusly by a separate finger ring which may enhance the novelty and ornamentality of the procedure.